


The Sieges

by indeepship



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Realistic, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-07 22:38:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6828058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indeepship/pseuds/indeepship
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karen Page has difficulties coming to terms with her murder of James Wesley, while Frank Castle sinks deeper into the role of The Punisher.  </p>
<p>Takes place (probably) in the wake of Season 2's events, and slowly explores the relationship between Frank and Karen, and how to bring the two together.  </p>
<p>(Originally posted on indeepship.tumblr.com)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dreams in the dark

It’s dark. 

There’s the smell of wet grass and blood. 

She stumbles forward, trying to catch up with them. The ground shines black in patches and she doesn’t want to know how much blood he has lost. She ignores the stabbing pain in her side and continues moving, cursing her heels. And then, the trees part and she sees them. 

“Stop. You don’t have to kill him.”

“Go back to the car.”

Her attempts to delay the inevitable are feeble. Granted, she’s not in the best shape for calm, compelling dissuasion. There’s a ringing in her ears she would love to get rid of with sleep and a hot cup of tea, but now is neither the time nor the place for either. 

And he’s moving again. Dragging Schoonover into the tool shed.

“You do this, and you are the monster that they say you are. Do you hear me?”

Does he?

This time, he doesn't pull the door close. She watches as he draws the gun, aims it at Schoonover. 

“You do this and I am done. That’s it. You’re dead to me. Do you hear me?”

And then suddenly the man on the ground isn’t Schoonover anymore, it’s a very familiar face in an expensive suit. 

And the person holding the gun, it’s herself.

The gun goes off. 

She finds herself looking down at the bullet-ridden corpse of James Wesley, the dark red blood already beginning to seep through his starched white shirt. She drops the gun, covers her mouth. 

But then Wesley blinks, lifts his head, looks her in the eye. 

“I’m already dead,” he says.

~

Karen Page bolted upright in bed, stifling a scream. Her heart was pounding, her hair matted with sweat. It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream, only a dream. As she repeated the words over and over again, her eyes scanned the darkness in her room. There were the familiar shapes of the dresser, and the chair, but over in the corner by the window… did the darkness seem especially dark? Then a flash of light illuminated something white. She could just make out the shape of an elongated skull.

His name died in her throat.

The light moved off, accompanied by the sound of an engine down below. And Karen realised that it had only been the headlights of a passing car, playing out over her white curtains. There was no skull, and certainly no one else in her room. Her heartbeat had gone back down to normal, and what she now felt was something akin to embarrassment. Like she’d failed some kind of strange Rorschach test.

The clock told her it was close to 4am in the morning. There was no point in going back to bed. She turned on the coffee machine in the kitchen before taking a quick shower. Minutes later, clutching a warm mug in both hands, she inhaled the scent of coffee before taking a sip. Her eyes fell on the opposite wall, chunks of plaster still missing from the barrage of bullets it had taken that night. She hadn’t had the time to call maintenance, and if she was really being honest, she didn’t want to. The bullet holes meant something to her. It was like a mural about innocence and the possibility of redemption. So she’d left the wall like that. Somehow, it gave her hope.

A change of clothes, jacket, bag, keys. 

Outside, the faint glow of daybreak was on the horizon. 

The siege of night had lifted, and Hell’s Kitchen was waking up.


	2. Coffee before killing

The girls huddled close to each other to keep warm. It was not so easy a task even in the cramped confines of the truck; the cold night air somehow managed to creep in and chill them to the bones. 

The truck pulled to a stop as the driver killed the engine. There was a moment’s silence, except for the occasional popping sounds coming from the cooling engine. In the darkness, some of the girls started to whimper. The loud bang of metal on the side of the truck put the fear back into them, and they started screaming, clutching one another. The rattle of the metal bar moved along the left side of the truck, gradually getting closer to the barred doors. 

All the girls’ eyes were pinned on them. For the past few days, what had held some hope of being a means of escape was now only an entryway to hell. 

The clank of the padlock.

Then the doors were yanked open. A burly man, crowbar in hand, was illuminated in the moonlight. 

There was a collective intake of breath, as though, in that split second, the girls finally realized their fate. And then the pleading began. 

“Please, let us go.”  
“Please don’t do this.”  
“Please, I want to go home.”  
“Please…”

None of it was in English, and it would have made no difference if it had been. 

Gripping the crowbar in his left hand, the man reached into the back of the truck and grabbed the wrist of the nearest girl. All at once they erupted into screams, several of the girls tightening their hold on the one as though preparing for a tug-of-war they would undoubtedly lose.

The man grunted in frustration, and raised the crowbar in his left hand. But before he could bring it down on his captives, something whizzed out of the darkness and struck him in the side of his head. He released his grip on the girl and amidst more screams, they pressed further into the back of the truck. 

Stunned, the man whirled around to face his attacker, but there was no one there. He dropped the crowbar and reached for the gun tucked in his waistband, ignoring the terrified screams from behind him. Squinting into the darkness, he tried to look for shadow, a movement, anything. 

There – something, by the cargo crate to the left of him. He fired a round, and the screams got louder. 

And then it was upon him, all fists and fury. Something hard caught him in the jaw the same time as something else slammed into his side. Was that one of his ribs cracking? And then he was thrown to the ground.

The girls watched in shock as the masked man threw the driver to the ground like a sack of potatoes. He turned towards them and some of the girls screamed again. But the masked man merely shouted some words at them. While they did not understand what he said, there was no denying what he meant. Get out of here. Some of them got to their feet shakily, helping the others up. There was another gunshot, and the masked man disappeared from view.

~

Shit. Things were going to shit. Brick ducked a straight punch to the nose, but took a fist in the stomach. He drew his right arm back for a hook, but the guy seemed to be able to predict his every move and block them accordingly. Out of the corner of his eye, Brick saw the goods escaping. Shit. He’d have a hell of a time explaining that to the boss. If he ever made it back.

The Devil had him in a choke hold against the truck. “Who are you working for?” he growled. 

“Like I’m gonna tell you shit,” Brick rasped out.

He got the beating of his life. All the while, the Devil punctuated his punches with the same question, but Brick wasn’t giving in. He’d rather die. It felt like forever but the Devil finally twisted Brick’s right arm behind his back. Brick gritted his teeth as he heard rather than felt the crunch of his own bones. “This is just a warning. I’ll be watching you.” There was a blow to the back of his head, and he slumped down. 

 

He awoke much later, feeling exactly like the crap had been beaten out of him. He staggered to his feet, gripping the side of the truck with his good hand for support. He stumbled towards the driver’s seat. It took all the effort he could muster just to put one foot in front of the other. He grasped the handle of the car door, and stopped. Something felt wrong. 

He wasn’t alone.

He opened his mouth to speak, but instead spat out a mixture of saliva and blood. 

Death stepped out of the shadows. 

“You both coulda just teamed up or somethin’, y’know,” Brick croaked. He marveled at his own audacity in the face of what was to come.

The man took a step forward, and Brick’s eyes were drawn to that enormous white skull. His throat felt dry. He licked his parched lips, tasted blood. Suddenly all he could think about was gulping down a glass of ice-cold water. It was all he wanted to do.

“Look,” he tried, “I – I’ll skip town, get the hell outta here…”

He could not take his eyes off that skull. It seemed to fill his entire vision. 

“Devil gave you a warning. I’m here for the sentence.”

There was no time for even a breath. 

Brick’s lifeless body hit the ground with a dull thump. 

~

He looks down at the dead man. Sure, there’s one less scumbag stinking up the streets of Hell’s Kitchen, but for some reason he just feels tired. He sighs a deep, long sigh. He lowers his gun. Tonight it feels a bit heavier than usual. A thought flickers across his mind. It takes him a few seconds to realize that he’s wondering if the man lying dead before him has any family. What is this, some shitty twinge of conscience? He closes his eyes, brows furrow slightly. Nope. He just hadn’t had his coffee. That was it.

He senses the shift in the shadows behind him, and doesn’t have to turn around to know that it’s Red come back, too late to stop him.

“I was going to keep tailing him.” 

He almost laughs at the condescension in the man’s voice. 

“You. You're no devil, Red.”

 

An hour later Frank Castle is nursing a cup of coffee in his large hands. Day is on the verge of breaking, and only insomniacs and workaholics are out. He’s perched on a stool in a corner of Hellas, a tiny hole-in-the-wall that gets by serving shitty gyros but pretty good coffee – for the first few brews, at least. The only thing he hates about the place is that they serve the coffee in those blue paper cups. Somehow, they always insist on using those flimsy things despite him pointedly telling them he wants to drink it there. He’s beginning to think they don’t have proper mugs. 

He’s staring into space when a flash of blond hair sweeps across his vision. Frank freezes, his mind racing. She’s at the counter ordering, her back to him, this woman with the long fair hair. He keeps his head down but his eyes, his eyes are staring hard at her. She taps her fingers on the grimy counter as she waits for her order, and he silently wills her to turn around. Or just a glance, a sideways glance. That would be enough for him to see her face. The seconds tick by. Frank’s not breathing and he doesn’t even know it. She hasn’t turned back once. She grabs her coffee and starts to leave. One step, two steps. And then she rounds back for something. She turns and Frank gets a good look at her face but she’s nobody, it’s just a nothing face that doesn't mean anything to him.

He looks away, gulps down the last of his coffee. He’s stayed too long here. He wonders why he even cares. Frank Castle gets up from the stool, tossing his empty cup into the bin by the door.

The Punisher steps out into the street. 

There's work to be done.


	3. Friends in high places

The sun was setting, the sky bleeding delicate hues of pink and orange, as Karen made her way past a row of restaurants and stopped at the corner. She didn’t have to wait long before she spotted the familiar figure of Franklin Nelson – better known to her as Foggy – cutting through the evening crowd and heading towards her.

“Foggy!”

“Hey, Karen.”

They exchanged a quick hug, and then Karen pulled back to examine her friend. He wore a crisp grey suit, his hair was gelled down neatly and she even caught a whiff of cologne about him. But on closer inspection, she noticed that his tie was slightly askew. Somehow this little detail made her feel like he was still the same Foggy from the Nelson and Murdock days, and not a hotshot attorney in one of the city’s biggest law firms.

“Would you believe I have not been called ‘Foggy’ for weeks? You’re a breath of fresh air, Karen. I should meet you more often.”

“Be careful, I might just take you up on that,” Karen smiled. “Come on, it’s this way.” She turned and headed towards the restaurant. It had a nondescript entrance – a simple unadorned wooden sliding door.

“Ryori?” he said reading the name of the restaurant off the wooden plaque. “You do know that I’m now rich enough to pay for a meal here, right?” 

Karen just shook her head, smiling as she slid open the wooden door. She gave her name to a waitress wearing an elegant powder blue yukata, and they were led to their seats. 

“Seriously, Karen,” Foggy said when the waitress had given them the menu and walked away, “how many cars have you stolen and sold on the black market to get us a table here?”

Karen laughed, covering her mouth with one hand to muffle the sound. “You know I’m here for a review, Foggy,” she admonishes lightheartedly.

Foggy smiled, “I know.”

“And I’ll also have you know that you were the first person I thought of inviting along.”

He didn't ask about Matt, and Karen was relieved.

 

Dinner turned out to be a series of several dishes of exquisitely crafted food, with a heavy serving of Foggy’s anecdotes about his job. Karen ended up laughing so hard she had to remind herself that she was in a posh restaurant. She felt grateful, blessed to still have Foggy as a friend, and that their friendship hadn’t been affected the way hers had with Matt. 

She must have had a thoughtful look on her face, because Foggy grew serious and leaned closer to her from across the table. 

“How have you been? Since… everything?” he asked.

Karen looked at him, wondering what she should say.

“I mean, I would’ve asked Matt, but you know me – I hate secondary sources,” Foggy grinned.

“I… I’m getting by. There’s work, which is pretty horrible but in a good way because it gives me something to focus on, and, yeah I miss how the three of us used to be, but I’ve got to move on.”

“You’ll be okay, Karen.”

Suddenly, she felt a desperate need to change the topic. She didn’t want to see the look of pitying concern on Foggy’s face. It made her feel stupid for clinging to the past.

“So uh anyway, how did you find the food?” she asked.

“Well, I thought the mitsubishi was in dire need of more banzai, but the karate chops were smashing!”

Despite what she had felt moments ago, Karen found herself laughing once again. “Oh Foggy, you know those aren’t even the words for food.”

In the end he did give her some useful comments, and by the time he was done, Karen nodded her approval. “You have redeemed yourself, Mr. Nelson. Marci has taught you well.”

~

Karen made her way home feeling better than she’d felt in days. 

She was inserting the keys into the lock on her apartment door when a voice called out her name softly. Startled, she whirled around, dropping her keys at the same time. They clattered to the floor noisily. 

Standing half-hidden in the shadows of her apartment corridor was

“Matt!” Karen exclaimed. At a loss for what to say, she mentioned the first thing that came to mind. “I was just having dinner… with Foggy…”

“I know.”

She stared at him.

“I need to talk to you, Karen. May I come in?”

“Oh!” Snapping back to reality, she bent down to retrieve her keys. “Yeah, sure.”

Matt stepped out of the shadows and slipped quickly after her into her apartment. Now that he was better lit, she could see that he was wearing his Daredevil suit sans mask. She closed the door after him, and dumped her bag on the sofa. Then, moving for the sake of moving, she grabbed a mug and filled it at the sink. She took a gulp of water and looked up. Matt was standing in front of her shot up wall, his fingers touching the deep grooves the bullets had made. Not for the first time, Karen found herself wondering what he was thinking.

It felt like an eternity before he turned around. He seemed to find it difficult to start.

“Karen, have you seen Frank Castle lately?”

That was not a question she had expected.

“Uh, no, not since uh, that night. On the rooftop.”

Matt nodded, more to himself than to her. “Well, there’s… word on the street that the Punisher is back at work, and given your… history with Frank Castle, I just wanted to make sure that you were safe.” 

Karen flushed. She knew Matt meant well, but somehow his words rubbed her the wrong way. “Is that really why you’re here, Matt? To make sure I’m safe? Or are you here to tell me to stay away from Frank?”

Matt sighed, exasperation creeping into his voice. “Karen, if you know what’s good for you, if you care even an ounce at all about your life and the lives of your friends, don’t go near the man.”

He had that concerned, caring gaze he always seemed to reserve for her. Once, Karen would have given anything for him to look at her that way. But all she felt at this moment was irritation. 

“Oh, and I’ll be safer with Matt Murdock, lawyer by day and costumed crime fighter by night? Well guess what, Matt, you both are the same and I am done with your kind.” She knew that lumping him with the Punisher was sure to strike a nerve, but she was past the point of caring.

Matt’s jaw twitched, like he wanted to say something but was holding back. He kept silent.

Karen sighed, and ran a hand through her hair. “Look, Matt, I’m tired. I think you should leave.” 

She moved to her door and Matt followed. He stepped out into the hallway, then turned back to her and said in the softest voice she’d ever heard him use, “I just don’t want to see you get hurt, Karen.”

She nodded. “I know. But whatever history Frank and I had… that’s history.”

She closed the door gently.

~

There’s a ringing in the air, all around him. 

His phone.

He reaches into his pocket for it, but he has no arms.

He has nothing.

He is nothing.

Everything all around is blackness. 

An empty void.

 

And then, pain.

Immeasurable pain.

How can he feel pain when he is made of nothing?

The ringing gets louder.

The pain grows, seeping into his non-existent eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth.

He screams in a vacuum. 

Soundless.

 

And then, suddenly, he’s breathing.

But it’s not air – it’s liquid, and it’s thick.

It rushes into his nose and mouth and he chokes on the taste of iron.

He needs air.

He uses his newly formed hands and curls them into fists.

He tries to punch his way out of this coffin.

He can barely breathe.

His lungs are bursting.

And all the time, the ringing.

 

And then suddenly, he’s tipped out on a hard concrete floor, breathing in deep, joyous lungfuls of air. He spits out the liquid from his mouth. It’s dark and red. He thinks he knows the word for it.

And the ringing is still in his ears but it’s no longer his phone, it’s a pure clear tone, the chime from an ancient Zen bowl bell, used to signal the end of long meditation sessions.

He doesn’t know where he is, but he’s breathing again. He’s alive. Again.

Something soft, fluffy and white is thrown down in front of him. It’s a… towel. 

He reaches for it, and as he does, the tips of a pair of polished shoes step into his line of sight. He looks up. It’s a face he knows.

The man speaks.

“Welcome back, James. Mr. Fisk is anxious to see you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much Kastle in this chapter, I'm afraid. I just wanted to set up the dynamics between Karen and Foggy, and Karen and Matt.


End file.
